Prime Minister's Advisor on Finance, Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh says coping with external threat on the economic side, strict austerity measures, helping downtrodden segments of society, facilitating industry, and mobilizing revenues are the five fundamentals of next year's budget.

He was addressing a news conference, flanked with Prime Minister's Special Assistant on Information Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar, and Chairman FBR Shabbar Zaidi in Islamabad this afternoon.

The Advisor said the government has to repay up to 2.9 trillion rupees debt taken by the previous regime.

He said over 50 percent of federal taxes will have to be given to provinces as a constitutional obligation.

Hafeez Sheikh said in the new budget, 50 billion rupees less than the previous year have been allocated for expenditure of the civilian government under austerity drive of the Prime Minister.

He said that the austerity has been started from the top by decreasing the salaries of cabinet members by 10 percent, while a raise of just 10 percent has been announced for government employees from grade one to 16 only.

The Adviser said employees of grade 17 to 20 will get five percent increase in their salaries, while senior officers of grade 21 and beyond will get no increment.

He said expenditure of Prime Minister House has been brought down drastically.—RadioPakistan